


how a weather builds in the silence

by goingmywaydoll



Series: we're lying on the moon [4]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Jyn Erso-centric, Living Together, One Shot, Post-Battle of Scarif
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 12:57:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10101755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingmywaydoll/pseuds/goingmywaydoll
Summary: Cassian moves his hand from her knee to run it through his hair, scratching the back of his neck and swallowing a yawn. He rubs at his jaw and the stubble ghosting his skin before his hand returns to her knee, his thumb resuming the idle circles across her skin. The light of the datapad reflects in his eyes as they flit across the screen, but he must realize that she’s been studying him instead of her mission file because he raises his head to look at her.Her previously almost imperceptible smile widens, unashamed to be caught. His grip on her knee tightens but it’s almost impalpable.“You’re staring,” he says....in which two questions are asked, six years apart, and the answer is yes both times.





	

**Author's Note:**

> *gasp* is this pure unadulterated happy!rebelcaptain? who am i??
> 
> written for [rebelcaptainprompts](rebelcaptainprompts.tumblr.com) under the prompt "one bed"
> 
> as always, i accept prompts at my tumblr [jamespttr](jamespttr.tumblr.com)
> 
> edit on 3/6/17: it's been brought to my attention that endor happened 5-6 years after scarif/yavin, which puts my timeline out of whack because the second scene takes place six years after the first, and the first takes place a year after scarif/yavin so.....clearly that doesn't add up since they're fighting the war in the second scene. so please ignore my blatant lack of knowledge of the star wars universe and try not to hate me too much for the distraction of mistakes.

It hits Jyn quietly.

Her back is pressed against the wall Cassian’s bed is pushed against, her legs thrown over his, a datapad resting on each of their laps as they file their respective mission reports. One hand rests on her knee, his thumb moving in circles across the skin lazy and slow, his other hand typing away at the datapad propped against her legs. A smile pulls at her lips, slight and barely noticeable. Her mission file remains incomplete as she lets her head fall back against the wall, her head tilted to the side as she lets her eyes rest on Cassian, his fingers moving deftly over the screen, his brow crinkled in thought, and the feeling of his hand on her knee steady and comforting. 

Quietly working, limbs tangled, comfort in the silence—it hits her that she's missed this and she resolves to fight any order that sends them on separate missions again. 

Cassian moves his hand from her knee to run it through his hair, scratching the back of his neck and swallowing a yawn. He rubs at his jaw and the stubble ghosting his skin before his hand returns to her knee, his thumb resuming the idle circles across her skin. The light of the datapad reflects in his eyes as they flit across the screen, but he must realize that she’s been studying him instead of her mission file because he raises his head to look at her.

Her previously almost imperceptible smile widens, unashamed to be caught. His grip on her knee tightens but it’s almost impalpable. 

“You’re staring,” he says.

“That I am, Captain,” she says, setting her datapad down beside her on the bed. “Brilliant skills of perception.”

“And why are you staring?” he asks, pointedly ignoring her last comment. 

“You’re the spy,” she says, shrugging, “You figure it out.”

“Or I could just…” His own datapad is set aside, and he grasps her legs to pull her forward so fast she doesn't have the time to react until she’s practically sitting on his lap, his mouth a breath away from his. “…Draw it out of you.”

“I’d like to see you try,” she says, her eyes narrowed but her lips curled into a grin. He kisses the grin right off her face, both hands cupping her cheeks. She twists in his lap—without breaking their kiss—so that she’s facing him properly now, her knees bent on either side of his hips. They’re in the privacy of Cassian’s room, it’s late, and there’s little chance of anyone showing up at his door, so she moves her hands south, fingers deftly working at his belt buckle.

Cassian pulls away sharply, his eyes closed and his shoulders rising and falling fast with each pant. 

“As much as I’d like to,” he says, inhaling deeply, “This mission report needs to be in before morning.”

“Tease,” she mutters, crawling off his lap and returning to her previous position. 

“I’ll make it up to you later,” he says.

“I’ll hold you to that,” she says, watching as he reaches for his datapad, wincing and letting out a small hiss of pain. “How’s your shoulder?” The words are soft, but Cassian shoots her a look anyway, his mouth in a thin line. “I’m not asking you to distract you!” she says indignantly before adding under her breath, “Can’t even be worried about you anymore.”

“My shoulder is fine,” he answers, putting his hand on it and rolling it carefully. His eyes go back to his datapad and Jyn can’t help but study him again, biting the inside of her cheek and frowning.

“What would have happened if you hadn’t gotten away from those ‘troopers?” she asks finally. Cassian’s hand stills over the screen but he doesn’t raise his eyes to meet hers. She won’t admit it aloud, but she hates it when Cassian has solo missions. It leaves her at the base with a persistent pit in her stomach, only made worse when he comes back slightly worse for wear, with a damaged shoulder and a narrow escape from a battalion of ‘troopers.

“You know what would have happened,” he says, his eyes still on the datapad, though she knows he’s not reading what’s on the screen. He’s right, she does know, and that’s why she’s asking.

“I know what you would have done,” she says, her eyes unconsciously drifting to his coat hanging over the chair at his desk, and the tiny pocket hidden in the sleeve with a pill tucked inside. “I’m asking what would have happened here.” She only just got back from her own mission yesterday, hours after he woke up in medical. They let her do her debrief first, then they told her. It’s one of the side effects of not everyone knowing about them—she’s rarely sought out when he almost dies on a mission.

“They would have told you when you arrived back at base,” he answers, his eyes raised but not meeting hers. 

“They wouldn’t radio me?” she asks, imagining it against her better judgement—Cassian, captured, dead, or both, while she’s still on her mission, oblivious for days maybe. Weeks, even.

“They only radio next of kin, and that’s only if it’s safe to,” he replies and they fall back into silence. She doesn’t regret bringing it up, she needed to know. But Cassian’s face is shadowed and she can’t stop thinking of what it would be like to be greeted back at the base with the news that he’s been dead for weeks. 

Cassian moves into her vision, leaning forward and taking her hand in his.

“I wasn’t captured, Jyn,” he says, looking her in the eye. 

“You could be,” she says and he doesn’t say anything to that, because he can’t tell her it’s not true. 

“You could…” She thinks he’s going to say something like she could be captured too but the way he trails off, as if he’s thinking hard about his next words tell her that’s not what he’s thinking. “If you…wanted…”

“What?”

“You don’t have to be a blood relative to be someone’s next of kin,” he says finally, looking at her carefully. 

“Oh,” she says, because she hadn't been expecting that. "So I could be..."

"If you want," he says and he shrugs. Their fingers are still laced together.

She hasn't had someone to be her next of kin for years and the fact that Cassian is laying here next to her, asking in his own roundabout way for her to be his, makes her head spin. She knows what she wants to say— _yesyesyes—_ but she feels as though her mind is failing to link the letters together to form the word and send the message that she should speak so that Cassian doesn't retreat into himself like she would if he took this long to respond. She decides that she is entitled to her own unspoken answer, since it is in response to an unspoken question.

His lips are soft against hers but she can feel the stiffness in his bones as she kisses him. He's still waiting for an answer, she realizes, and she feels a rush of guilt for thinking the kiss would be enough of one, so she pulls away, her forehead resting against his. His eyes are closed, but hers are not and she catalogues each line on his face in her mind before whispering, "Yes."

Cassian's lips curve upwards at that, his eyes still shut. He kisses her first this time, slow and intentional.

"But only if you're mine," she says. Cassian nods and she ignores the way her heart stutters in her chest, the way her breath catches in her throat, embarrassed by her own visceral reaction to his reply to a question so simple. 

Though, she supposes, it's not so simple for them.

 

* * *

 

Jyn likes sleeping on her stomach, her face pressed to the mattress and one arm hanging off the bed. When they first started sharing a bed, Cassian had told her she took up too much space, but never complained when she refused to move. And now, after years of living together, after getting upgraded to a permanent bunk with a double bed—a luxury compared to Cassian’s cramped quarters and the constant presence of a bunkmate in Jyn’s—Jyn still sleeps on her stomach.

His fingers trail up her spine, drawing circles across her shoulder blades before moving back down, his touch lighter than she would have thought possible for a man like him. Her eyes flicker open and she turns her head so she’s facing him but doesn’t push herself up from the mattress like he has, one elbow propping himself up on his side. 

“Would you ever like to make this official?” he asks and she blinks. Cassian isn’t the type to bring something like this up before she’s rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Living with him for seven years has told her that Cassian likes his confessions whispered against her skin in the dark before they fall asleep.

“It’s not official?” she asks, one eyebrow raised. She twists her body so she’s mirroring his position and pulls the sheets up to her chest, shivering in the cool air.

“I meant legal. Signing papers, writing vows, having records of our relationship.”

“I’ve already made any vow to you that I want,” she says, catching his free hand with hers and lacing her fingers through it. “But you know that. Why do you ask?”

“Curiosity,” he answers. “You became my next of kin years ago but it’s never been made legal. I know you’re not one for the official but…”

“You want to know if it’s something I want,” she finishes easily. They don’t often finish each other’s sentences, mostly because the other would probably have them pinned to the ground if they did, but it feels right here. Jyn looks down at their intertwined hands before speaking. “I’d never thought about it. It’s not something I need, I don’t think. This is…”

“Enough,” he says and she looks back up at him and nods. He kisses her then, his fingers tangling in her hair as he slants his body over hers with a practiced ease. He rests his forehead against hers when he pulls his mouth from hers, his eyes almost closed. 

“Is it something you want?” she asks and she finds herself unable to gauge his reaction to her question his face is so close to hers it’s blurred in her vision. He moves off of her, but doesn’t go far, falling back against the pillows and tucking her into his side, his arm thrown around her shoulders. She doesn’t have to look at him to know he’s thinking hard. He takes a strand of her hair and twists it between his fingers.

“I have thought about it,” he says finally and she counts it as a win that he can still say things that surprise her after all these years. “But I am not sure what it would change.”

“Probably nothing,” she says honestly because she can’t imagine it would. “We’re as good as married anyway.” She likes that she can say that and know that he agrees. “I don’t need papers or a ring to prove it.

“Neither do I,” he says. There's a pause and then: “Perhaps not quite so many recruits would try to flirt with you if you had a ring.”

Her laugh is muffled by the kiss she presses to his shoulder and she can feel the quick rise and fall of his chest that accompanies his own chuckle. 

“But it would make me _so_ much less intimidating,” she says and his smile softens from mirth to affection. 

“That,” he says, “is not possible.”

“Good answer,” she says and rewards him with a kiss. They lie mostly in silence after that, savoring in their free time, but she breaks it when she says, “Still. I like the idea of the rings being _ours_.” The words come out a little bit wary, like she’s testing the way they sound in her mouth.

“Not for anyone else,” he adds, frowning towards the ceiling as he thinks. She turns her head to face him again, studying him carefully as they both think on this new turn of events. She's not sure how much time passes when she realizes that she's imagining owning a ring that matches his and the only way it makes her feel is warm.

“Let’s do it,” she says suddenly, sitting up in bed. Cassian’s gaze darts back to hers, the flicker of shock across his face impossible to miss. “Let’s do it today. We can get the rings later, I don’t care. We don’t have to tell anyone, in fact, I’d rather we didn’t. But I can't come up with a reason to not do it right now.”

“That’s why you want to marry me? Because you don’t have a reason not to?” he asks, sitting up too, a bemused look in his eyes. 

“You know what I mean,” she says, shoving him lightly. “Get dressed, I want to get married.”

 

* * *

 

She hadn’t known what it would feel like, if things would change. They don’t. Neither her nor Cassian feels the need to tell anyone. They’ll know when they know. Their relationship certainly hasn’t changed and if it has, it's not enough for them or anyone else to take note of it. She doesn't suddenly feel more confident in their lasting, or in his love for her. Sometimes she worries that they just did it because it was what was expected. You fall in love, you live together, you get married, and there’s a party, and you tell all your friends. They picked apart that list and chose what suited them but. But she worries still. 

But it’s only sometimes that she feels it, the presence of that pit in her stomach that accompanies doing what someone else wants her to do rather than what she wants.

The rest of the time is more than enough to make up for it.

The rest of the time feels a lot like she feels when they’re loading a ship for a mission, Cassian’s jacket thrown over a crate off to the side so he’s only wearing the familiar Alliance-issue undershirt with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. And he’ll bend down, ignoring his now creaking bones as he lifts a crate, and a chain will fall from its place tucked under his shirt. It’s a glint of light that will snag Jyn’s gaze and she’ll catch sight of a ring that matches the one on the chain around her neck and she’ll get a different sort of feeling in her stomach, one that feels warm and silky and she’ll call the feeling home.


End file.
